US escalates illegal, unilateral sanctions on Iran

US escalates illegal, unilateral sanctions on Iran

By
Mike Head

3 November 2018

Intensifying its aggressive “America First” global agenda, the Trump administration yesterday confirmed that it will impose new sanctions on Iran that are designed to cripple its economy, starve its people into submission and overturn its government in order to impose a subservient pro-US regime.

US President Donald Trump tweeted a photograph of himself on Friday in the style of an advertisement for the Game of Thrones fantasy TV series, with the tagline: “Sanctions Are Coming, November 5.” This is a reference to “Winter is Coming”—the series’ theme of violence, revenge and war. Later, he boasted to reporters: “Iran is taking a very big hit.”

The measures outlined yesterday are indeed so sweeping that they are tantamount to a declaration of war. Moreover, they are backed by threats of military action if Iran persists in defying US diktats. The sanctions violate UN resolutions endorsing the 2015 nuclear accord struck between Iran, the five permanent UN Security Council members (the US, Britain, France, Russia and China), plus Germany and the European Union.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo effectively confirmed that Washington, which installed and maintained the barbaric dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlavi for more than 25 years from 1953 to 1979, is seeking once again to establish unchallenged hegemony over the oil-rich country.

“Every effort is aimed at giving the Iranian people the government that they not only want but deserve,” the former CIA director declared, employing the bullying and contemptuous language associated with US regime-change operations around the world.

To achieve its end, the Trump administration is directly punishing the Iranian people—tens of…